151–160 of 178 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lufthansa is never close to cheap flights...
Yes, quite the contrary. It's one of maybe 10 five stars airlines. It's an elite airline.
It seems I've been proven wrong already.
One thing that I think the business world has finally learned during the COVID-19 social distancing is that business travel isn't nearly so important as we had imagined. And attending conferences was always fun but it's been amazing to watch how fast conferences have switched to an on-line format (well ... the technical ones that I would attend). So it's my opinion that the airlines, hotels, conference centers and ta…
This might be true but also sounds like it's spoken from a very privileged position. There's probably (tens of?) millions of workers around the world separated from their families. It's not only about tourism and business travel.
What does "privilege" have to do with this conversation? The GP's comment is a prediction about business travel. He made no such prediction about personal travel.
> It's not only about tourism and business travel.
It is for the hotels and airlines. They make most of their profits on business customers who don't have time to count pennies because they have work to do. When I visit family on the other side of the planet the total cost is often times less than the cost of a week long business trip to New York.
I have always difficulties understanding these kind of statements: "appointment of civil servants or politicians to the supervisory board was unacceptable in the eyes of Lufthansa's executives." Like, how is that any of executives' business who is on the supervisory board? If they do not like the money, find other investors, easy as that? It is almost like "ownership" is not a concept that should be associated with c…
2. Hostile takeovers are hostile to current management. You are obviously free to do what you want with your share. It's the firm treating the takeover as hostile. Shareholders are free to vote in / remove executives in order to change the way a takeover is perceived.
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Curious what you mean by “national importance?” Do you mean ego/national pride, or that without a state provided carrier there would be no flights (unlikely for a Germany or Belgium, but possible for, say, the Marshall Islands or Togo)? Or that there is some sort of treaty-mandated interlink that requires a designated flag carrier (I know this last case was true decades ago, but I’m not sure the US even has one any m…
It's about control. During bad time like this Covid time, to haul cargo of national importance like masks or ventilators, passenger airline can be used if military one proves insufficient. And how many countries will allow others military cargo planes in their border?
In practice: most, including the US. How do you think that Russian aid was delivered last month? Not on a commercial flight.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious what you mean by “national importance?” Do you mean ego/national pride, or that without a state provided carrier there would be no flights (unlikely for a Germany or Belgium, but possible for, say, the Marshall Islands or Togo)? Or that there is some sort of treaty-mandated interlink that requires a designated flag carrier (I know this last case was true decades ago, but I’m not sure the US even has one any m…
Well, a country with a decent population size and a decent economy has to rely on air transport. Just now many countries flew out their citizens for example. As far as I know, Lufthansa, like some other airlines, have a government owned golden share. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_share In fact, if I remember right, an EU based airline is not even allowed to be owned by more than 50% of non EU share holders.
LH’s golden share was sold off in the 1990s (that’s in the article).
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Perhaps because the claim "The way EU works is by letting monopolies in a few west European countries expand their market to east" is clearly ludicrous as a summary of how the EU works? I mean, the EU - ignoring the name changes over the years - had existed for over 30 years before the fall of the Iron curtain and nearly 50 years before admitting new members from the the East. The idea that the whole thing was set-up…
If it didn't work this way, protectionism wouldn't exist. There are various economics models which show Germany has benefited the most from creation of EU Sure countries in middle of Europe and east are improving their baseline but it's nothing compared to what Germany has achieved. Germany is effectively china of EU. It's funny to see the same people who oppose China's currency manipulation are in favour of EU I sug…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps because the claim "The way EU works is by letting monopolies in a few west European countries expand their market to east" is clearly ludicrous as a summary of how the EU works? I mean, the EU - ignoring the name changes over the years - had existed for over 30 years before the fall of the Iron curtain and nearly 50 years before admitting new members from the the East. The idea that the whole thing was set-up…
If it didn't work this way, protectionism wouldn't exist. There are various economics models which show Germany has benefited the most from creation of EU Sure countries in middle of Europe and east are improving their baseline but it's nothing compared to what Germany has achieved. Germany is effectively china of EU. It's funny to see the same people who oppose China's currency manipulation are in favour of EU I sug…
Using the 1990-2015 period (because the numbers are directly available on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_growt...).
The following countries all grew by MORE than Germany: Poland (8.5%), Romania (6.9%), Lithuania (6.9%), Slovakia (6.7%), Czech Republic (6.6%), Estonia (6.4%), Ireland (6.2%), Latvia (5.8%), Hungary (5.5%), Malta (5.1%), Bulgaria (4.7%), Luxembourg (4.6%), Norway (3.9%), Portugal (3.6%), Slovenia (3.3%), Croatia (3.1%), United Kingdom (3.1%) and the Netherlands (3.0%).
Germany's rate for the same period was 2.9%.
So you're theory that Germany has benefited the most from the EU - at least for this period - is clearly false.
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The problem is that these companies are so inefficient and the conserved the 30 years old business practices very well internally because the governments are keep bailing them out. Maybe it would be for the better to let them fall and start over. Build an airliner that operates effectively and widen the margin. There are other alternatives. For 10 - 15B EUR (estimated) we could connect the major European cities with…
Your point brings up rail companies. I can’t see that they would be doing great right now, but a brief search doesn’t seem to show that they are circling the drain. I wonder why?
The German media does not have this story (yet?). The best I can find that the German govt made an offer for a EUR 9B bailout, which would be (in large part) a credit which would lead to a commitment of EUR 500M per year in repayments (which the Lufthansa doesn't want), and the govt wants two board sets (which the Lufthansa doesn't want). It is also reported that the Lufthansa is looking into opening a "Schutzschirmv…
Frankfurter Allgemeine reports seem to agree with your statements and also see 1-2 week timeframe for further negotiations. Strange that BI somehow has the scoop. https://m.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/lufthansa-erhaelt-erste...
The Suddeutsche Zeitung has a similar story to FAZ where there have been negotiations between gov and Lufthansa, but that the two parties are far apart and negotiations are not close to an end. Timeframe for finalizing negotiations is said to be before the end of May. SZ seems to have some insider sources too, so now I am really in doubt about the legitimacy of the Business Insider reporting.
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/schutzschirm-lufthans...